Recent Tasting Notes

This tea is a rather old sample, so a fresh one might taste different. I’m mostly getting a sour citrusy flavor here. I don’t taste any pine at all, which is a big disappointment. I don’t know that I’m interested in a fresher sample since I’m not sure I want a citrusy pine tea.

Preparation

I’ve drank this tea once or twice and haven’t logged it yet. I am having it tonight as my first cup of tea this weekend…lol. And a tisane at that!

So onto the review. I don’t feel like doing a detailed one tonight as I want to get back into my book before bed, but this one is soo savory, I love it. If you like savory teas, you will enjoy. To me it smells like Christmas turkey and mint lol (from the sage). It’s more broth like than tea like. But it’s rejuvenating and soothing to me.

I saw some reviews saying this tea gave them odd dreams. I haven’t experienced that yet with this tea, but as it’s the first time I drink it before bed I guess we will see. I’ll have enough trouble sleeping with daylight saving time kicking in today (sleep time an hour earlier and I’m a night owl lol).

Anyways, this tea is tasty and caffeine free, which is just what I need right now. Very enjoyable for a bagged tea as well.

Haha yeah I enjoy the extra sunlight in the evening but this morning was brutal to get up..I also realized I have a site meeting tomorrow at 7 am, which will feel like 6 am…ughhh going to be a long week :(

Belated Merry Christmas Steepster! I finally regained my sense of taste and smell on Christmas day which was awesome, but I am still fighting a hacking horrible cough as of today gahh. I ordered myself a tin of this and the white sage tea with my bfs present, and after reading about pine needle tea being helpful for colds, I thought I’d try it tonight at the lake :) very fitting setting.

The smell is so much pine trees I thought I was in the forest! Wow! Sap and bark and trees..all the smells of camping. I steeped the tea bag (wish it was loose lol) for about 3 mins. The taste is nice and fresh, pure piney goodness, a hint of sweetness and citrus. Hopefully it helps this silly cough to go away! Overall, so far pleased about the flavor and hoping it helps!

Thank you to Nichole for sending me a few bags of this to try! It had been on my wishlist for some time so I’m pretty excited to be able to try it now.

This smells incredible, very fresh but also woodsy. I’m definitely picking up on some citrus and pine. I was expecting long, green needles but it looks like everything has been ground to a powder inside the bags. I steeped this for a full 10 minutes and when I pulled the bag from the water I was left with a golden liquid, almost honey-colored, but also a pretty thick film on the surface. My husband tried this and said it tasted like pickles (???) but I think it’s pretty nice. I can still smell the citrus and pine and the taste is very light, almost a little watered. While it isn’t as amazing as I thought it might be, I am still enjoying it. I’m sure would be a hit ice-cold so I think I’ll try that next.

Pine needle is supposed to be very good for you and the immune system. I read that the water should be under boiling to avoid destroying the beneficial ingredients, while longer steep time brings them out more.

I’ve never had Douglas fir, but the local pine tree needles are tasty. I imagine that the vinegar taste is probably the pine acidity, perhaps when coupled with a dill-like fir flavor, reminisces of pickle…

teatortoise, I will try this next time at a lower temperature. How long of a steep time would you suggest? I’ll have to tell my husband about your explanation for the pickle flavor. He’ll appreciate the reasoning. :)

Just a guess, though!
For pine needles I steep for about ten to fifteen minutes, for more taste and nutrients/vitamins/substances etc. Just lightly simmering it. Depends how broken it is, and a little longer if it is fresh—which it isn’t here.

Do you simmer over a steady heat for the full 15 minutes or do you only start with barely simmering water and let it rest off the heat? I started with boiling water and let it steep for ten minutes off the heat so maybe that’s where I went wrong here.

This is a very interesting tea. Oddly refreshing. Sweet and Savory all in the same sip. Thanks to thelastdodo letting me nab it in their last sales stash. Not sure how I feel about it so I’m not going to rate it, but I am glad I tried it.

I purchased this on a whim last week at the Scarlet Sage, an herb store in San Francisco. I’ve always been curious about this blend and wanted to finally try it. The tin is lovely but the tea comes in paper teabags, which is kind of a shame.

The aroma of this reminds me of Thanksgiving. I think sage is one of the primary ingredients in stuffing. It smells and tastes more strongly of sage in my opinion, but the mint is present and provides a really good contrast to the sage. This has an almost sweet quality to it which is odd and not what I was expecting.

I did a bit of research and found out that sage is good for digestive problems (as well as mint), so this seems like a nice after dinner or bedtime type of tea. I might like the smell a bit better than the taste, but it’s a decent herbal either way. I’m sure I’ll be glad I have this the next time I get a cold. Also I felt the smell was very relaxing and then I read this piece on the web that sage aroma lifts the spirits. Nice!

Preparation

I got both of Juniper Ridge’s teas for Christmas from my roommates. I love the idea of wildcrafted tea. I chose this tea shortly after unwrapping it. Hey, it was Christmas! Although they are in teabags, I don’t mind much. Loose would have been cooler, but I digress.
I was nervous about this tea. It smelled exactly like the little douglas fir that was our Christmas tree. I kind of like the smell of sweet pine, perhaps the tea would be better?
Well, I did not get too much piney flavor as I thought. Which is good. The stronger tastes that I noted were honey and lemongrass. The pine was sweet and not at all like those tree-shaped air fresheners. I could sense the sun and the wind whipping through the fir trees. It was a light and airy and not heavy and overtly pungent. Hey, I may keep drinking this one!

This was such an interesting herbal tea: While the peppermint is the dominant aroma and flavor, there were subtleties of sage as well in its aroma (although I didn’t taste any sage to speak of). Drank straight up without honey, and it was lovely: The peppermint lingered.

This will be my last logged tea before leaving florida tomorrow for my cross-country road trip and move to Seattle, Washington!
Living in the Pacific Northwest has been my dream since visiting 2 years ago, and now it will be my home.
My boyfriend and I are making the drive all the way from south Florida, and plan to stop in Roswell, NM, then the Grand Canyon, then California and Yosemite, and then most amazing of all, onto the Redwoods!! I will finally see them for real. I also cannot wait to see Oregon, which I feel so connected to even though I’ve never been there.
My plan is to study the forests and determine my place in the environmental and forestry field. There is nothing I love more than the trees and forests, and I want to be near them always.

A friend of mine brought this tea over who funnily enough got it from a friend in Seattle, while the tea itself comes from Oregon.
The magical scent of this tea alone immediately makes it the best tea ever. It is the tea to end all teas for me.
It smells like a forest, and burning a Frasier Fir candle at the same time transforms my room into one. I cannot wait to be in a real forest and to drink this tea among the trees.

I can drink this tea forever.
I can’t explain the tree flavor other than its lovely, and has a lemon-like concentrated end.
Its super calming.
I also feel a special energy from this tea. Sort of like when I’m sitting on the ground leaning against a tree, and I get this incredible relaxed and happy feeling in my back. Its hard to explain.

I hope you have a wonderful move! I made a similar journey two years ago, from San Diego to Baltimore, it was amazing. Stay safe, and the Grand Canyon is one of the most awe-inspiring things you will ever witness. I have never seen the Redwoods though, it’s always been a dream.

Have a wonderful safe trip. You’re going to a great place for forests! My mother-in-law lives in Port Angeles on the Puget Sound. Beautiful place. I moved to LA in a car in 1978, right out of college. Met my husband there, came back with him to the East Coast for career and family reasons in 1985. But the road trips were great each way. We’re in the Atlanta area now and have raised 3 kids. It is great to follow your dreams by having a great adventure like this when you are young.

I have a lifetime of great memories in all the places you’re about to visit and live. You are just beginning! I’ll tell you one thing…drinking tea will mean much more once you’ve connected with the trees and the forest floor. (especially pu-erh for me). Have the grandest time in the quiet!

CupofTree – probably not, I moved back to California because Rayn is here and I missed him more than I miss Oregon. :) He works in IT, so as much as I would love for us both to move up to Oregon it would be very hard for him to find a job there.

OH MY what a night I had last night! My coworker gave me some of this tea, and my husband and I had it last night. As I sipped the herbaceous and slightly menthol tisane, I grew very sleepy. I instantly fell asleep once I went to bed, and had the most vivid, intense, insane, technicolor dreams of my life!!!!!!!! I actually shot up in the middle of the night, woke my husband, and asked him if he was having the dreams of the century! He said, “No.” and went back to sleep! I followed him, and continued to dream, dream, dream!

When I woke up I looked in my herb books, but none of them recommended sage for dreaming. I guess I am my own special snowflake in this regard, because I never experienced anything like this! It did say that it was good for headaches – my husband had one last night, and I asked him if it felt better, and he said that it did!

I had one bag left over, and gave it to my other coworker! I am in no rush to go through that again!

Batrachoid – I was thinking that I was a dam about to burst because I had a very challenging week last week, and no time to deal with it mentally! I think the white sage probably, um, facilitated that! It’s got me curious about other herbal blends, that’s for sure!

LadyLondonderry – This has got me curious about other herbal teas that are “medicinal” like the ones offered by Mountain Rose Herbs. They have a Dream tea but it’s sold out right now! I’m going to keep checking up on it! I’ll let you know! Also, I remember you saying you had a twitter? What’s your name on there? I’d like to add you if you wouldn’t mind. I’m @jackiemania

You know, despite my occasionally desperate efforts to find one, I have yet to get my hands on a magic put-me-to-sweet-and-unconscious-sleep tea. Too many years of Tylenol pm have made me immune? Best I can get is one that takes the edge off the frazzle while I’m winding down. (Which is always welcome.)

I chose this one for Afternoon Throat Soothing. If you are going to be sick around the holidays, why not drink pine needles!!!? :) It is doing the job admirably. I love the lemony gentle pine flavor. I plan to steep this one until I leave for the day, because something warm for my throat is making all the difference.

Preparation

I’m freezing today, and already drank up my allotment of caffeine. A friend that I work with gave me two of these little bags of tisane, so I thought today would be the day to try errr, pine needles!

Well I’ll be – it’s really good! It definitely tastes like a pine tree – sort of menthol-y but not quite menthol-y and lemony but not quite lemony and smoky but not quite smoky! It tastes like Winter. It’s oddly soothing. It’s making me very happy that my work friend thought of me and shared some with me :)

I took the bag out after 3 minutes, and I think it will be a pleasant resteep! I’ll let you know later because we are having a fire drill!

EDIT: back from fire drill! It makes a nice second steep, but the first is the best one with all the Winter Magic in it.

Preparation

This was an impulse buy at Whole Foods. A very calming, meditative tea. Reminds me of a really nice incense perfume—balsam, a very light floral, a feeling of clean. But not cleaning product, thankfully.

Preparation

This is a really soothing, nicely fragrant tea. It comes in tea bags, which I rarely use, but they don’t seem to detract at all from this tea. The mint is strong, but balanced with the sage. Naturally caffeine-free, it’s the perfect tea for evening relaxation.

This is very nice. The overall taste is very minty and crisp, but I also taste a hint of peppery warmth … not super spicy or anything, but just a hint of kick toward the tail. The sage gives a nice earthy tone to the cup. Very nice to curl up to as I am preparing to head to bed … it’s SO late! What am I doing up?

Tasting this tea immediately reminded me of the scent from the juniper trees my parents would always buy as part of the Christmas tradition of decorating a ‘Christmas tree.’ While the taste of the tea is fairly mild and the aroma is unique, it does have one unpleasurable side effect: headaches. Never once have I prepared this tea and come away without a mild headache coupled with moderate unease – the kind you get when you’re sensitive to anti-histamines. If you can sample this tea without any ill effects, I’d say more power to you. For me, I can’t handle this particular brew.

Preparation

Backlogging from a day or two ago. This is a delicious and unusual tea. It does have the expected “piney” or evergreen flavor, but it has a subtle sweetness that was unexpected. I would recommend shorter steeps or lower temps, since it got sort of sludgy on me.